Back in 1969 a group of Black Panthers decided
that a fellow Black Panther named Alex Rackley needed to die.
Rackley was suspected of disloyalty.

Rackley was first tied to a chair. Once safely
immobilized, his friends tortured him for hours by, among other
things, pouring boiling water on him.

When they got tired of torturing Rackley,
Black Panther member, Warren Kimbo, took Rackley outside and
put a bullet in his head. Rackley's body was later found floating
in a river about 25 miles north of New Haven, CT.

Perhaps at this point you're curious as to
what happened to these Black Panthers. In 1977--- that's only
eight years later--- only one of the killers was still in jail.
The shooter, Warren Kimbo, managed to get a scholarship to Harvard.
He later became an assistant dean at an Eastern Connecticut State
College.

Isn't that something? As a 60's radical,
you can pump a bullet into someone's head, and a few years later,
in the same state, you can become an assistant college dean.
Only in America!

Erica Huggins was the lady who served the
Panthers by boiling the water for Mr. Rackley's torture. Some
years later, Ms. Huggins was elected to a California School Board.

How in the world do you think these killers
got off so easy? Maybe it was in some part due to the efforts
of two people who came to the defense of the Panthers. These
two people actually went so far as to shut down Yale University
with demonstrations in defense of the accused Black Panthers
during their trial. One of these people was none other than Bill
Lan Lee.

Mr. Lee, or Mr. LAN Lee, as the case may
be, isn't a college dean. He isn't a member of a California school
board. He is now head of the US Justice Department's Civil Rights
Division.

OK, so who was the other Panther defender?
Is this other notable Panther defender now a school board member?
Is this other Panther apologist now an assistant college dean?
No, Neither! The other Panther defender was, like Lee, a radical
law student at Yale University at the time.

She is now known as the "smartest woman
in the world." She is none other than the new Democratic
US Senator from the State of New York---our lovely First Lady,
the incredible Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Summary of eRumor:
According to the eRumor, in the late 1960's, two Black Panthers were
tried for murder in the death of a fellow Black Panther, Alex Rackley.
Rackley was tortured before being killed. The Panthers who were tried,
Warren Kimbro and Erica Huggins, escaped prosecution thanks, in part,
to the defense of Hillary Clinton. Warren Kimbro went on to Harvard and
became Assistant Dean of Eastern Connecticut State College. Erica Huggins
was elected to a school board.

The Truth:
This eRumor has developed a life of its own with differing interpretations
of what is true or not true about it.

It circulated widely during Hillary Rodham
Clinton's year 2000 run for the U.S. Senate and obviously came
from a critic.

According to published accounts, Alex Rackley
was a Panther recruit from New York who was tortured and killed
in New Haven, Connecticut because he was suspected of being
a police informant. Twelve Panthers were indicted including
Warren Kimbro, Erica Huggins, and Panther leader Bobby Seale.
Contrary to the email, Kimbro was not proven to be the "shooter" and
did not stand trial, but did plead guilty to second degree
murder. He was later released from prison and admitted to Harvard.
We have not found evidence that he was a college dean. Another
Panther was convicted of having fired the fatal shot and was
sentenced to life in prison. Huggins and Seale were tried together,
but the jury deadlocked and their cases were dismissed.

The Bobby Seales trial drew protests, not
because the protestors approved of murder, but they felt that
the Panthers were being treated unfairly by the authorities
and that Seales, who was not personally involved in the killing,
should not have been tried. There were demonstrations at Yale,
but they were peaceful, did not "shut down" the university.

John Elvin of Insight magazine looked into
the Hillary-Panthers eRumor as well as how it was handled by
some urban legends sites and wrote his findings in an article
that appeared in July of 2000. He quotes former sixties radical
David Horowitz as saying that both Hillary Rodham and Bill
Lann Lee organized demonstrations at Yale against the Panther
trial. Elvin also says, "Insight reviewed biographies
of Hillary Clinton by Milton, Brock and Roger Morris for this
story and lengthy selections from such other biographies as
Barbara Olson’s Hell to Pay. Together, relying on primary
and other firsthand sources, they unquestionably back Horowitz’s
contention that Hillary was a campus leader during the Panther
protests."

That was all a long time ago and most of
us would not want to be characterized by our views and activities
in college or graduate school, but, for whatever it's worth,
they do become a part of our story.